The golden sigil flared behind him.

A low hum passed over Nikolai’s skin as he stepped off the 70th floor and into the Tower District — the passage between the upper floors and the Nexus transit chamber. He expected chatter. Footsteps. The buzz of adventurers dealing with vendors, translators, or just finding food.

Instead—

Silence.

The wide street was empty.

“Strange…”

‘There’s nothing here.’

It wasn’t right—this couldn’t be the Tower District he knew.

A sense of danger tickled his spine.

Lanterns still flickered from archways, and glowing tiles still lit the winding road, but not a single voice echoed through the air. Not even from the echo chambers above. The wooden shops, usually stacked with elixirs and relics, sat open but unmanned.

A half-eaten skewer of meat lay on a bench.

Still warm.

His feet slowed.

A low pulse beat once at the base of his spine — not magic, but instinct. That primal awareness that told beasts when to run, when to stay still, when to kill.

“What the hell is going on?”

He turned his head.

Nothing behind him.

But the air was wrong.

Too clean.

No smell of oil. No sweat. No burning incense from the Djinn traders. Just the faint scent of stone and… copper.

His claws itched.

Nikolai walked faster.

‘I should return home, fast… abvoid any issues.’

The black obsidian aura along his shoulders flickered as the Obsidian Tide stirred uneasily beneath his skin. Even the damaged parts of his body began to heat up — old blood tearing open from wounds that hadn’t fully closed.

The Tower District’s final corridor opened ahead, with the central transit hub — the Nexus platform — pulsing at its centre.

One more door.

One more breath.

He stepped through.

And stopped.

The Nexus was empty.

Not blank — just still.

The usual spectres and figures rushing around the platform vanished, even the blue colour of the huge portal to enter the nexus became grey.

“…”

Nikolai’s eyes narrowed, his lips pressed together.

That enormous circular platform usually shimmered with arcane light, with shadows drifting through it like fish behind glass. But now the water wasn’t moving. The energy inside the portal barely twitched.

The runes along the border glowed weakly.

And above it all, the cathedral-like ceiling of the tower pulsed with something — a vibration deeper than sound.

He took one more step.

That’s when he felt it.

The air dropped ten degrees. His breath fogged.

The Obsidian Tide slammed into the centre of his chest like a punch.

He turned—just in time to see them descend.

Three.

They dropped from the high arches above the Nexus ring like coffins falling from heaven. Heavy. Quiet. Final.

They landed in perfect silence.

Not a whisper.

Not a footstep.

Just presence.

Nikolai’s claws extended with a swoosh.

And the voice inside him, the one that sounded like Viktor’s on his worst day, whispered:

“They’re not alive.”

The first of them moved.

Not like a warrior.

Not like a monster.

It simply vanished — one moment standing twenty feet away, the next appearing directly before Nikolai with no transition, only the wind left behind.

A skeletal fist slammed into his ribs.

The sound was dull and wet — like iron meeting meat.

Nikolai’s body launched backwards, skipping once across the stone like a thrown hammer before slamming into a pillar near the outer wall. The structure cracked behind him, and his lungs refused to fill for half a second.

He roared on reflex, the black aura exploding from his back like liquid fire, claws drawn.

But the second Bone Saint was already there.

It dropped down with a sickening crunch, its fists locked together into a hammer strike that came down on Nikolai’s shoulder before he could fully rise.

Crack.

His knee buckled.

His left arm twitched, numb.

That one was broken now, too.

He rolled hard to the side as the third landed beside the others, each of them forming a triangle around his cratered position. They didn’t speak. Didn’t gesture. They just watched, masks of bone and old flesh twitching slightly under the glow of ancient magic.

“Who the fuck…”

Nikolai leapt backwards, baring his teeth.

“It doesn’t matter, I’m going to crush your skull!”

They rushed him at once.

The next ten seconds were a blur of blood, flesh and pain.

He blocked one strike — barely — and retaliated with a slash that tore through one’s side, only to find no organs beneath, only fused bone and hardened flesh. The thing didn’t even flinch.

The second slammed into his back, knocking him off balance. The third wrapped its arms around his waist, lifted him off the ground with terrifying speed—

And spiked him into the stone.

The platform cracked.

His skull hit hard enough to blur his sight.

His claws flailed upward — one raked across a Saint’s mask. Bone chipped. The thing reared back. A second came in with a spinning elbow, catching Nikolai across the jaw.

His vision cut out for half a second.

Only fury brought him back.

With a howl, he exploded upward — his body swelled again as the full weight of the Obsidian Tide surged to the surface. His remaining strength poured into his arms and legs, sending shockwaves through the floor.

One Saint flew backwards from the impact, finally slamming into a support column and folding it in half.

Another claw came through Nikolai’s chest.

The third had circled behind.

It punched straight through the muscle.

He grabbed it — with everything he had left — and twisted.

Snap.

The wrist broke.

Then he tore it out.

The limb dangled from his chest for a moment before he threw it at the second, then lunged. This time, he didn’t stop to think. He used his teeth, his claws, his full body weight, tearing through ancient sinew and magical wards layer by layer.

He ripped the first Saint’s spine free, black ichor spilling out like smoke.

It twitched once. Then died.

But the second already had his leg.

The third reached for his throat.

He was going to lose this.

He knew it.

——

Nikolai didn’t have time to think, didn’t have time to speak. He even lacked the chance to experience the pain.

He dropped to all fours, claws gouging deep lines into the cracked floor, and charged.

The second Bone Saint loomed ahead, winding up for another strike—but this time, Nikolai didn’t dodge. He rammed shoulder-first into its core with the full weight of his transformed body, lifting it off the ground and slamming it backwards through the skeletal arch near the portal frame.

Stone shattered.

The creature fell.

Before it could rise, he was on it.

He didn’t bother with finesse.

Just rage.

His claws tore into its chest — one, two, three rapid strikes — breaking through the layered armour of calcified flesh and reinforced ribs. It reached for his throat with a twitching arm—

Too late.

Nikolai’s jaws closed around its neck.

And with a sickening crunch, he bit straight through.

The second Bone Saint collapsed into a twitching heap, head twisted half-off, aura flickering like a dying lantern.

One left.

The third launched at him.

Nikolai turned, threw himself sideways, and let the momentum carry him toward the last pillar — the sealed gateway to his private patriarch chamber. Blood poured from his arm. His leg felt wrong. The claws on one hand were cracked to the root.

But he moved.

Because he had to.

He slammed his palm onto the sigil hidden behind the shattered marble.

The glyph lit red. Then white.

Portal opening.

The final Bone Saint’s hand caught his shoulder.

Its claws pierced deep, dragging into his back like barbed spears. It pulled—

But he turned, growling, and drove a boot into its face.

Once.

Twice.

On the third strike, its mask cracked.

The bone saint’s fist smashed into Nikolai’s face, breaking his nose, blood spurting from his nostrils and lips, before he lugged both feet back and flung them into the saint’s face with all his strength.

A sickening crunch followed, his hammer kick crushing the saint’s nose, jaw and lifting the monster off its feet, allowing him to dive towards the portal to the Volkov mansion just as the last Saint reached for his ankle—

And the stone wall came crashing down behind him like a guillotine.

Crack!

The Bone Saint’s head shattered, crushed by the stone wall… killing the last one.

The portal sealed with a hum.

Nikolai fell into the darkness of his hidden chamber, blood trailing in the air from his nose and mouth, his eyes closing with flickering, blurry vision.

But he was alive.

The portal behind him shimmered once, then vanished, leaving only silence.

Nikolai staggered.

He barely made it halfway across the office before his knees buckled without power, and Nikolai caught himself against the edge of the desk, claws dragging long gouges into the polished wood, with blood leaking in thick lines down his side.

Then—

The door burst open.

Leona stood in the frame, still in her maid uniform, glasses tilted slightly, a scroll in one hand.

She froze.

“…My Lord?”

Her eyes widened.

She dropped the scroll.

“Leona…” he rasped. “Don’t… yell.”

“I’m not yelling,” she snapped, already crossing the room, voice calm but taut with panic. “You look horrible…”

He sank into the chair behind the desk and leaned over the side.

“Feels about right.”

Leona knelt beside him, examining his wounds with careful, steady fingers.

“Who did this?”

She looked at the deep claw marks, the shattered ribs beneath the skin. Her expression darkened.

“I’ll get Seraphina.”

“Let me sit… a minute.”

Leona stood slowly.

Then quietly—

“You came home half-dead again. You’re going to kill them with worry.”

Nikolai didn’t answer.

He just closed his eyes.

And let himself breathe.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep